‘Sounds great,’ says Hugo.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go to bed,’ I say, yawning theatrically and picking up a mug of herbal tea. ‘I’m going to have this in our room.’
‘Be there in a minute, darling,’ Hugo calls. My skin prickles, and I pretend I haven’t heard.
Our room is almost as impressive as the living room. The enormous bed has crisp white linen enclosing an incredibly puffy duvet which is practically obscured by various furry throws and rugs. I stroke one of the throws. Real fur.
There are exposed stone walls and wood panelling everywhere, like downstairs. A huge sliding door rolls back to reveal a freestanding bath for two in the enormous bathroom and there’s also a massive marble tile-lined shower. I kick my boots off to feel the heated floors which can be controlled by a touch panel on the wall.
The room is immaculate because all our things from our matching Mulberry luggage (a wedding present from Hugo’s mother) have already been unpacked and put away. That’s one of those services that these kind of places always offer which I hate – I don’t want other people touching my things. I check that my purse and iPad are still in place in my handbag, not that I suppose for one moment they would have been stolen.
I turn the taps on in the enormous bath and tip the entire contents of one of the little green Hermès bottles in. Hermès – very nice. I strip off and throw my clothes on the floor. The mess will annoy Hugo, but I don’t care. I sink back into the bubbles, turn off the taps, and close my eyes. Only seven more days to go.
‘Ria?’ Hugo’s voice is sharp and too loud. I open my eyes. The water is lukewarm – I must have fallen asleep. ‘Have you seen my book?’ He gives me a look – I can’t quite work out if it’s reproachful or sympathetic. ‘You shouldn’t fall asleep in the bath. It’s dangerous.’
I haul myself up and Hugo hands me a robe, but not before his gaze flicks up and down my naked body. Ugh. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m exhausted though. It’s been a long day.’
He trails his fingers lightly down from my neck across my breasts and down to my waist. ‘Too tired to …’ he asks.
I kiss him chastely on the cheek and say: ‘Why don’t you have a quick shower and then we’ll see?’ knowing full well that I will pretend to be asleep by the time he gets into bed.
I keep my eyes closed and breathe slowly and evenly as I feel Hugo lie down beside me. He gently kisses the back of my shoulder and I think I hear him sigh as he rolls away and turns the light off.
It feels like the middle of the night when there is a knock on the door. ‘Morning! I have tea for you. Can I come in?’ Millie calls softly through the door. I press my face into the pillow, ignoring Hugo’s erection which is jabbing into my back.
‘Come in, we’re decent!’ Hugo mumbles, flicking the light on.
‘I’ll leave it here for you,’ Millie says as she puts the tray down on the desk, discreetly averting her eyes from the bed. ‘Breakfast will be ready for you at eight, but there’s no rush if you’d rather have a lie-in.’
I catch a whiff of Hugo’s morning breath as he stretches and yawns while the door clicks quietly shut behind Millie. ‘No chance of that,’ he says. ‘Not if Simon has anything to do with it. Come on,’ he throws back the covers exuberantly, ‘up you get!’
I sit up blearily. ‘Did Simon say something about a ski lesson? Do I honestly have to do that?’
‘It would help me massively if you did,’ Hugo shouts from the bathroom. ‘I’d like you to spend some time with Cass so you can find out what Simon’s plans are.’
‘Plans?’
He pushes the door open and pulls his toothbrush out of his mouth, rolling his eyes. ‘For the business! Is he planning to buy in? What might it take to impress him? What can I do to persuade him? That sort of thing.’ He wraps a big white towel around his waist and starts shaving. ‘It’s no big deal, is it? Cass has skied before, but she’s lost her confidence since the baby was born, according to Simon. It’s not like you’re only going to be on the nursery slopes or anything. Simon just thought she’d be happier with an instructor. I think it’s rather sweet. Thoughtful of him.’
I sigh and throw back the duvet. ‘Fine. But if it’s too boring, I’m going to make my excuses and leave.’
I pad into the shower and switch it on, enjoying the powerful torrent of slightly too hot water from the huge rainhead on my skin. Much as I’d prefer not to be here, I have to admit the luxurious surroundings are pretty fantastic.
Once Hugo has finished shaving, he drops his towel and takes it upon himself to join me in the shower. It is absolutely the last thing I can be bothered with right now, but I can’t think of an excuse to get him out.
3
December 1998, La Madière, France
Where are they? I go to call out to them but then remember I don’t know their names. Andy will probably know. ‘You all right there?’ I yell. Silence. The wind is picking up and the visibility is worse than ever. ‘Guys? You there?’
Andy finally hones into view further down the slope as I slowly traverse my way down.
‘Where were you?’ I fume as I stop, deliberately spraying snow at the fucker. ‘I’ve lost the clients!’ A panicky feeling is rising inside me even though this is not my fault. It isn’t. The clients shouldn’t have lied to me. They shouldn’t have told me they were much better skiers than they actually are. What if I’d taken them down the kind of terrain they were actually asking for? What if we’d tried something steeper and more gnarly? Then where would we be?
‘I thought you had them,’ Andy says.
‘You should have been watching!’ I explode.
‘Bloody hell, calm down, Cameron! They’ll be fine. They must have gone ahead of us – you can’t see where anyone is when it’s like this.’
‘I would have seen them if they’d gone past me,’ I counter.
‘Yeah, right, whatever. Either way, standing here isn’t going to achieve anything. Best we can do is carry on down and see if we catch up with them. If we get down and we still haven’t seen then, then we’ll think about what to do next.’
Andy sets off down the slope without waiting for me to reply, almost instantly disappearing out of sight because the visibility is so bad. I race after, furiously. No one is beating me down the slope just to prove they’re the better skier! After a few seconds I whizz past the twat, down, down, down. I can barely see a thing but it doesn’t matter, I know this slope so well I could ski it with my eyes closed. Which I might as well be doing, given the conditions right now.
I’m so focused on beating Andy down that it’s only when I get to the bottom I remember the missing clients. Argh! Where are they?
I stare up at the slope, but there’s no one in sight. A few seconds later, Andy appears. ‘I thought we were meant to be looking for the clients? Why’d you race off like that?’
‘Seeing if I could catch them up if they were ahead,’ I lie. ‘Don’t want them deciding to fuck off home because we’ve left them standing in the cold too long.’ Where are they? ‘You didn’t see them?’ I ask Andy.
‘No.’ There’s a pause. ‘D’you think we should call someone? Let someone know they’ve gone AWOL?’
In spite of the freezing wind I feel a bead of sweat run down my back inside my jacket. ‘It’s a bit early for that, isn’t it? I bet they’re fine. Let’s head up on the lift and ski down again, properly slowly this time. We’ll probably pick them up second time around. You’ll give me a hand, won’t you?’ I ask, even though it almost kills me to say it.
Andy gives me a strange look. ‘Yeah. I will. It’s dangerous for them out there on their own in these conditions. Let’s get going.’
Back on the lift, it is even colder and windier than before. I pull my scarf tighter around my neck and dig my chin into the top of my jacket. I peer downwards through the blizzard in case the clients have somehow made it back on to the piste – it’s possible from the couloir, though only really if you know t
he way – but I can barely see a thing. Even the piste appears to be deserted – anyone sensible has already called it a day.
The lift shudders to a halt about halfway up, leaving us swinging as the wind continues to roar around us. We sit in silence, huddled into our jackets, faces down against the wind. After a few minutes which pass more like hours, there is a squeal and the lift starts moving again. Thank God. ‘Can’t wait to get off this mountain,’ Andy says. ‘It’s freezing. God knows why these poor saps come out in this weather.’
The chairlift stops again just as the lift station comes into sight. Someone has fallen over getting off and is for some reason taking forever to get themselves back upright, despite the lift guy hauling them up. There’s something purple in the snow by their feet – a hat or scarf. I watch as they bend to pick it up and drop their pole.
‘Hurry up!’ I mutter, through clenched teeth. My fingers hurt, they’re dug so far into my hands now. Andy looks at me sideways and says: ‘It’ll be OK. You need to calm down.’
‘I am calm!’ I snap, but I’m lying. I’m not. The lift finally starts moving again and we slide off onto the snow.
‘OK – I’ll take the left side, you take the right,’ I say. ‘We need to go down really slowly. Both of us,’ I emphasize. I feel like I’m going to be sick. The trail is narrow and what I want to say is, ‘We need to check over the edges too,’ but I can’t quite bring myself to. The weather is still closing in and it’s going to be impossible to see anything anyway. Andy nods solemnly. My unspoken words are hanging in the air.
I feel worse and worse as we ski down in near silence. I try to peer over the edges but it’s impossible. We call out periodically – ‘Hey! You there? You OK?’ but I can tell it’s pointless – I can’t even hear myself over the wind. We get to the bottom and look at each other.
I am so cold and stressed I can barely get my words out. ‘What do we do now?’
4
January 2020, La Madière, France
Ria
I didn’t want to come this week, for many reasons, but even so, it feels good to be in the mountains. The sun is out, the sky is blue and the air is clear. I went out this morning with every intention of playing the dutiful wife and skiing with Cass like Hugo wanted me to, but in the end I found that, after a few runs, I just couldn’t be bothered. Sorry, Hugo. Cass is young and boring and once I’ve asked about the baby which I’m not interested in and her former catering business (ditto) we don’t really have anything to say to each other.
I head back to the chalet hoping that no one will be there so I can spend some time in the hot tub on my own. But as soon as I open the door I can hear that someone else is here. Millie appears at the top of the stairs, straightens her logoed polo shirt and rearranges her face into its usual fixed smile.
‘Hello, Ria. I wasn’t expecting you back so early – I understood Simon had booked you an instructor for the whole day.’ Her forehead creases. ‘I hope everything’s OK?’
‘Yes, everything’s fine – just thought I’d spend some time in the hot tub.’ It comes out snappier than I’d intended, so I smile to try to soften it. Sometimes I forget how to play the part of the dutiful corporate wife. Or it’s not so much that I forget, it’s more that I simply don’t want to. ‘It’s a while since I’ve skied and my legs are already aching. Is it OK if I use the hot tub? I don’t want to get in your way.’
‘Yes of course!’ she gushes. ‘Whatever you like. I’ll go and take the cover off for you now if you want to go up and get changed? I’ve finished doing the rooms up here. Would you like me to bring you anything out there – a glass of bubbly maybe? Or some water?’
I shake my head. ‘No, that’s fine, thank you.’
Millie nods discreetly, comes down the stairs and goes out to the large terrace where I see steam rise from the hot tub as she pulls back the cover. After changing, I spend the afternoon alternating between the hot tub and the terrace, where Millie brings me a heated blanket for my lounger. I decide to take her up on her offer of a glass of champagne or two after all. It is blissful.
It’s amazing what a difference an afternoon all to myself makes to my mood – by the early evening I’m almost glad to be here. Almost. The fire is lit in the double-height living room, the stars are out, and the champagne is ice-cold. I guess things could be a lot worse.
‘Ria – may I introduce Matt please?’ Millie says as she offers me a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Matt is in the same polo shirt as Millie and very much in the same mould although older – immaculately groomed and with a fixed smile.
‘I’m the rep for Snow Snow within the resort,’ he says, shaking my hand. ‘We have five chalets here, as you may know, twenty throughout the Alps, but we like to pride ourselves on individual service. Is the chalet to your liking?’
‘Yes – it’s lovely,’ I say. ‘It’s even better in the flesh than in the pictures.’ I feel myself redden. I’m not sure why.
‘We’re particularly proud of this one – our most luxurious, even if it is one of the smaller ones,’ Matt says. ‘So how was your day today – did you get out on the slopes?’
‘I did for a while – it was very nice. And I enjoyed the hot tub too.’
His eyes almost imperceptibly flick up and down my body and I wonder if he is imagining me naked. Hugo comes over and puts his arm around my shoulders, but I shrug him off, pretending I’m reaching for a canapé.
‘Matt, this is Hugo,’ I say, deliberately not introducing him as my husband. Hugo shakes Matt’s hand and then starts boring on about the runs he and Simon did today, the specifications of his skis, the importance of various bits of kit and loads of other stuff that Matt no doubt has no desire to hear about.
I tune out for a while and when I turn my attention back to the conversation a few seconds (or minutes? Who knows?) later, the conversation has turned to how long Matt has worked in the resort and his plans for the future.
Eventually we sit down to dinner. I make sure I sit next to Matt – not because I particularly fancy him, but at least flirting with him will provide me with a distraction.
Dinner is amazing, again, and the wine is fabulous. I drink more than I should. Hugo won’t like me getting drunk, especially in front of a potential investor like Simon, but, well, whatever. I feel like drinking tonight and so I will. Getting drunk is the only way I’m going to get through the week, plus it’ll give me a good excuse to stay in bed tomorrow morning and not go to my boring ski lesson with boring Cass and listen to her bore on about her boring baby. Hugo is being pathetically sycophantic, laughing at Simon’s crap jokes in between glaring angrily at me when he thinks no one is looking.
Millie reappears at the table and Hugo puts his hand over my wine glass. ‘I think you’ve had enough, don’t you, darling?’ he says with a fake smile. He almost never does stuff like that – dares to tell me what to do. He’s obviously desperate to impress Simon.
But as far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a drink if I want to. ‘No, I don’t think I have,’ I say, flicking his hand off my glass and turning towards Millie. ‘More of the delicious red, please – thank you.’
Millie hesitates and then pours me a small glass. I feel a twinge of pity for her – it’s not fair to involve her in my rage towards Hugo. I resolve to leave her a huge tip when we leave. ‘In fact,’ I state, slurring slightly and, I admit, deliberately, riled by Hugo’s attempt to make me feel guilty, ‘I think we should play a drinking game. Who’s up for it?’
‘Always up for a drinking game!’ Simon practically shouts. ‘Quite the filly you’ve got there, Hugo!’ he adds, raising his glass to him across the table. Hugo glances at me and I grin.
‘How about “I have never”?’ booms Simon.
‘Yes! I’ll start,’ I yelp. ‘I have never … had a threesome.’
Simon roars with laughter. Hugo looks at me in horror. Matt raises his glass and drinks, smirking.
‘Matt!’ Simon bellows. ‘You dirty dog.
Now that’s a story I’d like to hear. OK, you go.’
Cass stands up abruptly. ‘Will you all excuse me?’ She pulls the sleeves of her somewhat frumpy cardigan down over her hands and casts a nervous glance towards her boorish husband. ‘I’m going to check on Inigo and then go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Without waiting for a response, she smiles tightly and leaves the table. Simon doesn’t even look at her. ‘Come on, come on …’ he prompts Matt.
Matt clears his throat. ‘I have never … been to Zimbabwe.’
‘Oh please!’ Simon shouts. ‘You don’t need to go all polite and poncey just because we’re clients. Although,’ he drains his glass, ‘I’ll drink to that obviously – and you too Hugo, you girl.’ Hugo obediently empties his glass and winces. He’s never been a big drinker. ‘Do another.’
Matt grins. ‘OK … I have never … had a same-sex sexual encounter.’
Hugo reddens and Simon looks expectant as I slowly drain my glass and slam it down.
Simon slaps his hand on the table. ‘Ha! Brilliant. That’s an image that … anyway, Ria – your go.’
‘I have never …’ the words ‘been in love’ force themselves into my mind but instead I say, ‘been arrested.’
Nobody drinks. I put my hand on the inside of Matt’s thigh. He doesn’t push it away.
A few rounds later, Hugo, who is quite clearly furious with me for not adequately playing the part of the corporate wife, says he’s going to bed and Millie also takes her leave. By now my hand has reached Matt’s crotch and I can feel he’s hard. I wish Simon would go to bed but he’s pouring himself another glass of wine and wants to move on to Fuzzy Duck.
Suddenly tiredness overwhelms me in the way it sometimes does when I’m too drunk. I retrieve my hand, stand up and say: ‘I can’t drink any more. I’m off to bed. Night all.’
Matt looks at me aghast – obviously thought his luck was in. Maybe it is. Maybe another night.
The Chalet: the most exciting new debut crime thriller of 2020 to race through this Christmas Page 2